Eric Boehlert with another great newsletter. (You can sign up here.)
As the coronavirus crisis becomes increasingly dire, news organization have to choose between covering the truth, and covering Trump.
Today, every time Trump addresses the novel virus and America’s unfolding pandemic, he makes things worse with his steady stream of reckless contradictions, lies, and misinformation. A proud agent of chaos, Trump is the worst possible leader at this moment, as the nation grapples with historic challenges.
On Friday, he held a rambling, incoherent Q & A with reporters at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where he lied and said anybody who wanted to could get tested for the virus, called Washington’s Democratic governor a “snake,” and asked a Fox News reporter about the TV ratings for Trump’s recent town hall on that network. First thing Monday morning, the Down Jones averages tanked.
Then on Wednesday night, Trump delivered a stupefying address to the nation that was filled with falsehoods and sent global investors scrambling as it became clear, once again, that the United States still does not have a coherent, comprehensive plan to deal with this sweeping public health crisis. Instead of announcing the creation of field hospitals, surge testing for states, or the tapping of medical professionals from the National Guard, Trump announced an arbitrary travel ban from Europe, and garbled the facts in the process.
He’s an elected leader who’s desperately in over his head, as the policy-free president refuses to take seriously the perilous situation at hand. And with his careless speech Wednesday, Trump simply poured gasoline onto a blazing fire.
But here’s the truly pressing part, and the element the news media really has to deal with, even though it’s likely too scared to do so: The President of the United States is actively endangering the American public, and at what point does the press decide that dutifully broadcasting Trump’s misinformation is not in the nation’s best interest. At what point does the press unplug Trump for the good of the country? Or, put more simply, at what point does the press acknowledge there’s a madman in the Oval Office and that he’s doing real harm to this nation’s actual well being during our national health crisis?
Normally we would expect the president to bring the country together, tell us al that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and marshall a national response to the crisis we can believe in. But Donald Trump has made things worse from the beginning and continues to do so. If we manage to “flatten the curve” of this outbreak, it will be because state and local officials along with private businesses took the bull by the horns. It’s not as effective as a nationally led response but it’s the best we can do under these circumstances.
The biggest problem confronting us now is disinformation. And it’s coming from inside the White House.